Nonna

The grandmother who really cooks Italy

Nonna – the grandmother – is not purely a family category but a grammatical category of Italian cuisine. Calling a dish “like Nonna’s” means it is right, and no father, mother or aunt could add a thing to it.

The nonna is not always there, but she is always present. Every region has entrusted its specialty to her: Piedmont the agnolotti del plin, Apulia the orecchiette, Sicily the arancine. What the grandmother does not pass on risks being lost, and most recipe books concede two paragraphs later that it cannot be explained anyway.